CCLM 2005 125
CCLM 2005 125
Clin Chem Lab Med 2005;43(7):735–740 2005 by Walter de Gruyter • Berlin • New York. DOI 10.1515/CCLM.2005.125
Materials and methods                                                  In the TAS assay, ABTS•q is generated by the peroxidase
                                                                    activity of metmyoglobin in the presence of the sample. The
Chemicals                                                           assay is started by the addition of metmyoglobin and
                                                                    ABTS•q begins to form. The ABTS•q formed reacts with anti-
ABTS and uric acid were obtained from Sigma Chemical Co.            oxidants present in the sample until the antioxidants are
(St. Louis, USA), 2,29-azino-bis(2-amidinopropane) dihydro-         consumed, whereafter the ABTS•q begins to accumulate.
chloride (ABAP) was obtained from Brunschwig Chemicals              The concentration of ABTS•q that has accumulated within a
(Amsterdam, The Netherlands), Trolox was obtained from              fixed time period is used to quantify the antioxidant capacity
Aldrich Chemical Co. (Milwaukee, USA), and the Randox               of the sample.
TAS kit was obtained from Randox Laboratories Ltd. (Crum-              In the TEAC decolorization assay, ABTS•q is generated
lin, UK). NaH2PO4ØH2O, Na2HPO4Ø2H2O, trichloroacetic acid           chemically. Here, the assay is started by addition of the sam-
(TCA) and NaOH were of analytical grade purity and were             ple to a solution containing pre-formed ABTS•q. The anti-
obtained from Merck Biochemica (Darmstadt, Germany).                oxidants react with the ABTS•q, resulting in the formation of
                                                                    colorless products. The decrease in ABTS•q concentration in
                                                                    a fixed time period, due to the reaction of ABTS•q with the
Blood plasma and serum                                              antioxidants present in the sample, is used to quantify the
                                                                    antioxidant capacity of the sample.
The study was conducted according to the guidelines of the
most recent Declaration of Helsinki and the local medical
ethics committee. Human blood was collected in BD Vacu-             TAS assay
tainer Systems (Becton Dickinson, Plymouth, UK) containing          Determination of the antioxidant capacity of non-deprotei-
EDTA for plasma or SST II Gel and Clot Activator for serum.         nated plasma or serum with the TAS assay was carried out
Plasma was obtained by centrifugation (5 min, 1000=g, 48C).         according to the instructions of the manufacturer (Randox
For serum, blood was allowed to clot at room temperature            Laboratories) on a Cobas Mira analyzer (Radiometer, Copen-
for 20 min. Serum was obtained by centrifugation (5 min,            hagen, Denmark). In short, ABTS solution and the sample
1000=g, 48C). Plasma and serum deproteination was carried           were transferred to a thermostated cuvet in cycle 1 (cycle
out by adding to plasma or serum an equal volume of a 10%           time is 25 s). In cycle 3 the metmyoglobin solution was add-
(w/v) TCA solution. Plasma and serum samples were placed            ed. The increase in absorption at 600 nm in the sample in
on ice for 5 min to complete deproteination, followed by cen-       cycle 10 vs. cycle 2 was calculated. The resulting value (DA)
trifugation (5 min, 14,000=g, 48C).                                 was compared with DA values for the Trolox calibrator (con-
                                                                    centration 1.6 mM Trolox) to calculate the TEAC.
Determination of the antioxidant capacity
                                                                    TEAC decolorization assay
Determination of the total antioxidant capacity of blood was
performed using the ability of antioxidants to scavenge the         The TEAC decolorization assay was carried out as described
blue-green-colored ABTS•q (Figure 1). Two different types of        by van den Berg et al. (13) with some modifications. Briefly,
assays were used, the commercially available TAS assay and          ABTS•q was produced by incubating a solution of 0.23 mM
the decolorization TEAC assay (13).                                 ABTS and 2.3 mM ABAP in 100 mM sodium phosphate buf-
fer, pH 7.4 at 708C until the absorption of the solution          from the same person revealed that the TEAC of
reached 0.70"0.02 at 734 nm. During the experiments, the          serum was 89"5.7% (ns3, ps0.04) of that of plasma.
solution was stored at 48C.                                       The lower TEAC of serum is probably caused by a
   The determination was carried out using a Cobas Mira           loss of antioxidants during serum preparation. There-
analyzer (Radiometer). In short, in cycle 1 the ABTS•q solu-
                                                                  fore, plasma is preferred over serum.
tion was transferred to a thermostated cuvet and preheated
                                                                    For determination of the total antioxidant capacity
for three cycles at 378C. In cycle 4, the sample was added.
The reduction in absorption in the sample at 752 nm in cycle      of plasma, two different assay principles are applied:
16 vs. cycle 3 was calculated and corrected for reduction in      the TAS assay and the TEAC decolorization assay. In
the blank. In the blank, an equal volume of buffer was added      the TAS assay, ABTS•q is enzymatically generated by
instead of sample. The duration of one cycle was 25 s. The        metmyoglobin. The assay is started by the addition of
resulting value (DA) was compared with DA values for the          metmyoglobin. The ABTS•q that is formed reacts with
synthetic antioxidant Trolox. A calibration curve was con-        antioxidants present in the sample. Once the antiox-
structed several times (Figure 2) using Trolox calibrators        idants are consumed, there is a buildup of ABTS•q.
(concentration range 0–0.4 mM Trolox in the cuvet). The           The concentration of ABTS•q that accumulates within
slopes of the calibration curves analyzed on 16 different days
                                                                  6 min depends on the concentration and scavenging
were compared and a ‘‘response factor’’ was obtained that
                                                                  capacity of antioxidants in the sample. In the TEAC
appeared to be constant. This response factor (0.710 mMy1)
was used to calculate the TEAC value of the samples by mul-       decolorization assay, the sample is added to pre-
tiplying the DA value of the sample by this response factor.
formed ABTS•q. The reduction in ABTS•q concentra-                   potential error and the underestimation of the anti-
tion after 6 min reflects the antioxidant capacity of               oxidant capacity of slow-reacting antioxidants in the
blood plasma, identical to the example given in Figure              TAS assay imply that the decolorization assay is pre-
3. Both the TAS assay and the decolorization assay                  ferred over the TAS assay for determination of the
were used to determine the antioxidant capacity of a                TEAC of blood plasma. Therefore, we focussed the
series of blood samples from healthy volunteers.                    subsequent evaluation on the decolorization assay.
Non-deproteinated plasma was used for this compar-                    Deproteination of blood plasma drastically reduced
ison because the TAS assay protocol is based on non-                the TEAC of blood plasma. The average TEAC of
deproteinated samples.                                              blood plasma determined with the decolorization
   It was found that the TEAC range determined in 100               assay dropped from 7.38"0.37 to 0.61"0.07 mM
healthy volunteers varied from 1.05 to 2.50 mM using                (ns100, p-0.001) after deproteination. It has been
the TAS assay, and from 5.51 to 7.08 mM with the                    reported that albumin is a major contributor to the
decolorization assay (Figure 4). The TAS values were                TEAC of protein-containing plasma (11, 17). The non-
approximately one-sixth of the decolorization values.               protein TEAC is due to low-molecular-weight endog-
As discussed above, the decolorization assay gives an               enous and alimentary compounds, such as uric acid,
underestimation of the antioxidant capacity (Figure 3).             ascorbate and flavonoids (10, 11). The TEAC is often
Apparently, with the TAS assay the deviation of the                 used to investigate the effect of dietary antioxidants,
measured capacity from the actual capacity is even                  indicating that deproteinated plasma is preferred.
greater. This originates from the relatively low con-               Thus, the high background level due to proteins is cir-
centration of ABTS•q during the 6 min incubation in                 cumvented. Deproteination, however, might also
the TAS assay. At the beginning of the assay, no                    result in the loss of antioxidants bound to proteins
ABTS•q is present. ABTS•q has to be formed enzy-                    (18). This should be taken into consideration when
matically and the ABTS•q that is generated will first               investigating the effects of dietary antioxidants.
react with fast-reacting antioxidants. The opportunity                Applying different volumes of deproteinated blood
for slow-reacting antioxidants to react with ABTS•q in              plasma in the decolorization assay revealed that the
the TAS assay is less compared with that in the decol-              response in this assay is not linearly related to the
orization assay. In the decolorization assay, an excess             volume of deproteinated plasma in the assay (Figure
of ABTS•q is present when the incubation starts.                    5) (16). For more than 25 mL of plasma, the decrease
   Another drawback of the TAS assay is that com-                   in absorbance of ABTS•q was relatively low. Under
pounds may reduce the formation of ABTS•q by inhib-                 these conditions, the greater part of the ABTS•q is
iting the peroxidase activity of the heme-containing                consumed. A low concentration of ABTS•q will reduce
protein, metmyoglobin (16). This would result in a too              the relative amount of antioxidants that will react with
high value of the TEAC. Interestingly, three plasma                 ABTS•q within the 6 min time period of the assay. This
samples had a relatively high TEAC in the TAS assay,                indicates that in the procedure applied the sample
while the TEAC in the decolorization assay did not
deviate from the other samples (Figure 4). Possibly,
the relatively high TEAC we observed in the three
samples in the TAS assay (Figure 4) is due to the pres-
ence of peroxidase inhibitors in these samples. This
      ity and its application to monitoring the antioxidant          17. Schofield D, Braganza JM. Shortcomings of an auto-
      status in premature neonates. Clin Sci 1993;84:407–12.             mated assay for total antioxidant status in biological flu-
12.   Marklund S. A simple specific method for the determi-              ids. Clin Chem 1996;42:1712–4.
      nation of the hemoglobin content of tissue homoge-             18. Arts MJ, Haenen GR, Wilms LC, Beetstra SA, Heijnen CG,
      nates. Clin Chim Acta 1979;92:229–34.                              Voss HP, et al. Interactions between flavonoids and pro-
13.   van den Berg R, Haenen GR, Van den Berg H, Bast A.                 teins: effect on the total antioxidant capacity. J Agric
      Applicability of an improved Trolox equivalent antioxi-            Food Chem 2002;50:1184–7.
      dant capacity (TEAC) assay for the evaluation of anti-         19. Lamont J, Campbell J, FitzGerald P. Measurement of
      oxidant capacity measurements of mixtures. Food Chem               individual vs. total antioxidants. Clin Chem 1997;
      1999;66:511–7.                                                     43:852–4.
14.   Re R, Pellegrini N, Proteggente A, Pannala A, Yang M,          20. Dallinga JW, Haenen GR, Bast A, Van Schooten FJ. The
      Rice-Evans C. Antioxidant activity applying an improved            effect of the trolox equivalent antioxidant capacity
      ABTS radical cation decolorization assay. Free Radic Biol          (TEAC) in plasma on the formation of 4-aminobiphenyl-
      Med 1999;26:1231–7.                                                haemoglobin adducts in smokers. Biomarkers 2002;
15.   Arts MJ, Haenen GR, Voss HP, Bast A. Antioxidant                   7:291–8.
                                                                     21. Van den Berg R, Van Vliet T, Broekmans WM, Cnubben
      capacity of reaction products limits the applicability of
                                                                         NH, Vaes WH, Roza L, et al. A vegetable/fruit concentrate
      the Trolox equivalent antioxidant capacity (TEAC) assay.
                                                                         with high antioxidant capacity has no effect on biomar-
      Food Chem Toxicol 2003;42:45–9.
                                                                         kers of antioxidant status in male smokers. J Nutr 2001;
16.   Strube M, Haenen GR, Van den Berg H, Bast A. Pitfalls
                                                                         131:1714–22.
      in a method for assessment of total antioxidant capacity.
      Free Radic Res 1997;26:515–21.                                 Received March 16, 2005, accepted May 11, 2005